Trall Dynasty
by greenleaf-in-bloom
Summary: I apologized to them. Not to her, but to my brothers and sister and my best friend next to him. I told them I was sorry, you see, so what I did was all right. I said it in the note, and I told them not to weep for me if he came back alone. (OotP AU)
1. Prologue

At that moment, whatever she told me was a lie. I didn't care if it had happened, I didn't care if she understood what I was going through. She was a liar and I hated her.  
  
She told me that he was gone. She never said "dead", but we all thought it. She never said "run away", but she thought that was what had happened and we knew that it wasn't. He had been taken.  
  
She told me.that they didn't know. Bull shit, I thought. He can't use shielding magic that Dumbledore can't puncture! He is powerful and good and strong, but not to that extent.  
  
If I never saw her again, I would be happy. If, after I left - for I was, of course, leaving - I died and never saw any of them, I would be glad, because I wouldn't die if he wasn't going to live either.  
  
I apologized to them. Not to her, but to my brothers and sister and my best friend next to him. I told them I was sorry, you see, so what I did was all right. I said it in the note, and I told them not to weep for me if he came back alone, but only to weep if neither of us did, because that would mean he was dead.  
  
My name doesn't matter anymore - I haven't used it for so long. My old name was Ronald. Ron, really. But now I just go by the name I took when I left, Trall, and for all I know I'll never go back.  
  
I'm following Harry. 


	2. Chapter One: Ron's gone after him

Chapter One Trall Dynasty greenleaf-in-bloom  
  
Minerva McGonagall  
  
The Headmaster told me first, his voice as I hadn't heard it since James and Lily were killed. His face hadn't even been like that then. It was worse now. He hadn't killed Harry. He had taken him.  
  
He didn't say it straight out. Something in me insisted that I shouldn't tell them that - the Weasleys and Hermione. I didn't lie. I told them we didn't know. It was true. We had no proof.  
  
I saw in Ron Weasley's eyes when I told him there, in the library, that he hated me. He hated me for telling him. He hated me and knew I was lying. Perhaps he tried to convince himself that it was all a lie. I don't think so. He went into the Tower with me, fled up the stairs before I got a chance to tell his brothers and sister and Hermione. He came down, Hermione said, about half an hour later. She couldn't tell me for sure. They were all frantic, and time was both the most and the least important thing right then. A minute seemed a second and an hour and a year.  
  
He came down, and would not speak to them. He ran then. There was a note, however, one of the most indifferent, indirectly cruel notes I have ever read. It was unintentional.  
  
He said no one should be sent after him. I was shocked when Professor Dumbledore could not find him, either. He must have put a great deal of effort into his masking. That boy was never strong with spells.  
  
The twins were the ones who told me that their younger brother was gone as well, and I must admit that I panicked myself then entirely. I was already frantic. Fred and George burst into my office, and instead of talking over each other they said as one, "Ron's gone after him," and then looked at each other in surprise. I sank into a chair and started to cry.  
  
I could not take this. Not on top of everything else. So sitting there in my office, in front of none other than Fred and George Weasley, I burst into tears.  
  
Had the situation not been what it was, it would have been possibly the most humiliating experience of my entire life, including the time when I put the wrong memories into the Pensieve that Professor Dumbledore was looking at.  
  
And to my utter surprise, they cried with me.  
  
Hermione Granger  
  
I panicked.  
  
That's the only thing I can say, and it's one of the truest, too. I panicked when Ron ran past me and away from Professor McGonagall, because he looked like he was crying and I knew something was very, very wrong. I panicked when she looked around and took a deep, awful breath and started to speak. I panicked when Fred and George froze and Ginny sank to the floor. And then I panicked when they said they were both gone.  
  
And every God-damned minute between them and afterward.  
  
Dobby, that house-elf, was about for a while. I watched him panic. I watched Ginny panic. I watched the twins panic. I wrote Sirius a letter. I told him what was going on. I wrote to Professor Lupin, too. I wrote to Ron, to tell him not to do this. The last letter I tore to pieces and threw into the fire, crying, when the owl couldn't figure out which way to go.  
  
I hated Ron for that note. I hated him. He told me to be brave and Ginny strong and the twins to be good for his mother. He told us not to weep if Harry came back alone, but only if neither of them did.  
  
I hated him.  
  
Harry. I wanted to help Harry. How did they take him? That was simple. He had gone out-of-bounds, to Hogsmeade. They had been waiting for him. They had watched him. That had to have been it. How else could they have caught him?  
  
I knew he was planning to go to Hogsmeade, and I didn't stop him. I didn't only hate Ron. I hated myself.  
  
Sirius Black  
  
Yes, I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when I got the two owls. One was Hermione's, the other Dumbledore's. I read the latter first, and didn't actually read Hermione's for quite a while after that. I had been sitting by the fire in my hiding place. Remus had found it for me, and it was actually quite comfortable - a cabin in the woods, abandoned, but still fairly sturdy, if cold at night. 


	3. Chapter Two: What Kind of Business?

Rating here is most definitely PG13 for some quite severe language. We're gonna get into gore and violence later, I don't know how bad it's gonna get.  
  
Sirius Black  
  
Yes, I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when I got the two owls. One was Hermione's, the other Dumbledore's. I read the latter first, and didn't actually read Hermione's for quite a while after that. I had been sitting by the fire in my hiding place. Remus had found it for me, and it was actually quite comfortable - a cabin in the woods, abandoned, but still fairly sturdy, if cold at night.  
  
Cold. It was always cold. Hermione's letter chilled me. There were blotches where she had cried. I'm alone now, she said. I'm sorry. He said not to go after him - Ron, I mean.  
  
I don't know what I thought. I was getting ready to go after Harry, of course, but we had no idea. Remus and I got together, trying to think. We tried to track a Death Eater. Lucius Malfoy - he was at home. We tried Goyle - home. Crabbe - Nott - Avery - MacNair - home, home, home.not home. Knockturn Alley.  
  
We left immediately.  
  
Remus Lupin  
  
Harry. Ron.  
  
Whether they knew it or not, they were almost in equal danger. If they caught Ron, they would kill him, no questions asked. They weren't going to kill Harry.  
  
.yet.  
  
They would kill him damn soon if Sirius and I didn't get to work. MacNair was in Knockturn Alley, according to our trackers, which meant that he didn't have Harry - he would have sheilded himself.  
  
I though Sirius would have sensed this immediately, but I guess he didn't.  
  
We Apperated, Sirius in dog form, of course, to as close to MacNair's position as we could get. I had donned newer robes - Knockturn Alley might be shabby, but that didn't mean that shabby-looking people weren't scorned there. It was people like Lucius Malfoy that were left well enough alone.  
  
At Sirius' suggestion - I was surprised he could think of it - I also used an Anti-Aging Potion. It would make me stand out somewhat, but the outfit I had put on - which included a 'stylish' hat, Sirius had told me a week ago, 'stylish!', and a pair of shade glasses - would make me seem young and fairly well off and 'sort of punky'. Sirius was odd sometimes.  
  
I, as a werewolf, would have been instantly suspected of Dark behavior if I stepped foot into Knockturn Alley, so I had only been there once, about a month before Lily and James died, on business for Dumbledore. The difference startled me, but that's not what I was worried about at the moment. I paid more attention to my directions. There I was, looking like a well-off young man with an enormous snarling dog that wasn't on a leash. No one was going to screw with me.  
  
I walked casually up to MacNair, who was standing and talking to someone. He turned around, sneering. "What do you want, you little piece of shit?" he asked, looking me up and down. Sirius growled low in his dog-throat. MacNair, looking disgusted but a bit afraid, shifted his gaze to Padfoot.  
  
"Is this supposed to be some sort of a dog?"  
  
"He happens to be a very distinguished dog with a reputation for getting violent. Now if you don't mind, you worm-ridden piece of filth, I'd like a private word. It's about business." This came out in a casual hiss. I knew better than to say the name Padfoot. Because of Peter, MacNair would know it.  
  
"What kind of business?" MacNair asked, wrinkling his nose in disgust at what he clearly thought was a messanger. His precise imitation of the way I had said "business" did not make me any happier. Harry, stay calm for Harry, I said to myself. Do this right.  
  
"I think you know what kind of business, you maggot. I think, you son of a bitch, you know exactly what kind of business I mean. Now get over there in the alley, you worthless asshole. It's about the boy."  
  
MacNair's eyes widened both in surprise and indignation. He glanced at the man he had been speaking to, who was staring at Remus, wide-eyed, and did as he was told.  
  
The alleyway - or rather, the very narrow space between two buildings - was quite private, and Remus could see more than one bloodstain on the brick walls. As soon as they were far enough back, Sirius moved so that MacNair was cornered, transformed, and grabbed the front of his robes in one swift motion, shoving him against the wall and driving the breath out of him. MacNair's eyes bulged, and he gasped, staring at Sirius in utter terror.  
  
"Where's Harry, you worthless fuck, where the hell is my godson -"  
  
"Sirius, stop!" Remus hissed, looking behind them at the near-empty street.  
  
"Shut the fuck up, Remus, this fucking bastard is going to tell me where the hell Harry is or I'm going to tear his worthless throat out -"  
  
MacNair was frozen. Sirius shoved him against the wall again, looking totally mad. "Fuck you, fuck you bastard, where the fuck is he, where is Harry, tell me right now -"  
  
"Don't know, I don't know!" MacNair gasped, looking positively terrified.  
  
"Don't lie, you goddamn - where is he? What have you done with him?"  
  
"Avery - sent on a mission - don't know what it was. My Master - took him aside - dungeons - biggest - don't know - I don't know - I don't know -"  
  
Sirius slammed him against the wall, letting him slide groaning to the ground. "Fuck!" he screamed, flinging his thin form against the wall. He, too, slid to the stones, head in his hands, sobbing. 


	4. Chapter Three: Dreams and Darkness

Ron  
  
I got on the train at four a.m. The train to Wales.  
  
It was where he was. I was sure of it.  
  
I fell asleep very soon, and dreamed of before, and of after.  
  
I woke up to the sight of thin rays of sun, the sound of an announcement - "We will soon be arriving -" and the memory of only after.  
  
*dream*  
  
It is cold, and Ron Weasley is standing outside in the rain, looking from one gravestone to the other. He is tall and worn, perhaps in his fourties, you might have said if you saw them. He is twenty-six.  
  
His best friend would have been twenty-six today, but things turned out differently.  
  
It is cold, and his sister is crying in the new car, a slick black still with the Muggle smell of industry and oil and change in the dark clean leather. She is crying for the boy, and for herself, and for the other lost one.  
  
They had never found the other one's body. They filled the casket with letters and pictures and gifts.  
  
It is cold, and the damp on his cheeks is only from rain, but if you look at him under a certain light, as it started to pour, he appears to be sobbing. His eyes scream agony. He puts on a black Muggle hat, but water from the wet tendrils of the long ginger hair that is plastered to his forehead still drips, and water pours off the sides of the hats.  
  
It is cold, and Ron Weasley looks across the graveyard at the freshly dug earth. He has just buried his father. There is no one left to mourn but he and his sister.  
  
*****  
  
Harry  
  
The walls were cold and made of stone, and he knew nothing more but a sharp pain in his head and darkness. The darkness, he knew, would be eternal, but the perhaps pain would not.  
  
That was all he cared about or thought of. 


	5. Chapter Four: Pain

Avery  
  
My Master had given me permission to do what I wished with Potter until I was told otherwise. He was not to be "made ineffectual."  
  
There was plenty of fun to be had.  
  
My dungeons were large, but had previously been scarcely inhabited. There was a yren there for a time - a mythical creature said to produce a powerful acid, for those of you who are ignorant - but it died before Master's rebirth.  
  
I amused myself by going to haunt him. He was always the ideal rebellious victim. I was afraid perhaps he had gone mad, once, but then I remembered he was in Gryffindor. They could not be driven mad. It had happened already, and had not been a long drive.  
  
It was a comfort to know that I held one of the most famed and possibly powerful people in Europe in my dungeon.  
  
I visited him at night when I wished, never allowing him sleep. I fed him Azkaban rations. Merciless and stale, and only when I felt like it.  
  
I fed him myself. I did not trust house-elves or servants. I am not a trusting man.  
  
Now I watched him sleep, and broke it through the bars, traditionally, with a large splash of freezing water - his clothes were still damp from the last one - and a mild Cruciatus.  
  
I only held it long enough to hear him cry. To cry names I had heard for the last minutes while I watched him sleep. Mother and Father who he never knew. Hermione, the girl Peter told us all of, and Ron, the boy, and Ginny, the little sister. Curious that he would call, too, for Black and Lupin, for Dumbledore and other names I did not recognize. Names like Cedric or Fawkes.  
  
He never cried for mercy, for pity, and it made me angry. I hit him with a hex that slashed his face and shoulder so he bled onto the floor, and he gasped. No cry this time. I sped the bleeding so that he would not be damaged to the extent that Master would be displeased but not enough for the pain to end. I did not clean the blood off the floor. It was a reminder.  
  
"Do you fear me, Potter?"  
  
He looked up at me with dull eyes and spat at my feet. I carelessly shot a Slapping Spell his way, and blood splattered again on the floor from his bleeding lips.  
  
"Do you hate me, Potter?"  
  
He looked away. I Slapped him again, from the other side, and shot a Punching Spell into his stomach. He grunted and took in a sharp breath.  
  
"Tell me you wish to die."  
  
He staggered to the bars. I did not move away, and he stared me in the eyes and hissed viciously, "You can break my body, but you will not break more. Your foul master will never win."  
  
"And you will?" I laughed. He was pitiful. That line must have been taken straight from a Muggle action movie. Potter had lived with Muggles. Perhaps they were rubbing off on him.  
  
"I was never meant to defeat Voldemort," he said softly.  
  
"No one was meant to defeat him," I replied, "much less a worthless child." 


End file.
